Days after the Indian government placed a ban on the popular gaming app, PUBG Corporation has barred Chinese firm Tencent Games from owning the game’s franchise in the country in an attempt to work around the ban.
“PUBG Corporation has made the decision to no longer authorise the PUBG MOBILE franchise to Tencent Games in India. Moving forward, PUBG Corporation will take on all publishing responsibilities within the country,” the company said in a statement.
PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds (PUBG) is an online multiplayer gaming application (app) developed and published by PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of South Korean video game company Bluehole.
The company, in its official statement, has said that it will work with the Indian government to find a solution that will allow gamers to continue playing the battle royale mobile game.
“PUBG Corporation fully understands and respects the measures taken by the government as the privacy and security of player data is a top priority for the company. It hopes to work hand-in-hand with the Indian government to find a solution that will allow gamers to once again drop into the battlegrounds while being fully compliant with Indian laws and regulations,” the company said in its statement.
Among the apps banned, PUBG is the most popular one. According to the Intelligence Firm Sensor Tower, India is a vast market for PUBG, clocking 175 million downloads of the game till date. It is 24 per cent of the total download in the world.
India had banned 118 more Chinese apps on September 2. The list included apps such as Baidu and WeChat but the biggest name on it was PUBG Mobile. The Lite version of PUBG Mobile, designed specifically for markets such as India to work on slower internet, was also part of the list.
Officials of the ministry of information and technology declined to comment on the South Korean firm distancing itself from Tencent.
However, it would be interesting to see if the government reconsiders the ban on PUBG Mobile now that technically the game has no “links” with China.
